


An Acquired Taste

by viridianmasquerade



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Black Romance, F/F, Hunting, Pirates, Whale hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1503464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viridianmasquerade/pseuds/viridianmasquerade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bored of treasure hunting, Rear Admiral Feferi makes a bet with Captain Vriska that she can't hunt down the biggest whale they've ever seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Acquired Taste

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jegolgothasterror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jegolgothasterror/gifts).



Rear Admiral Feferi is a hungry seadweller princess-turned-pirate adrift on a dreambubble ocean craving the taste of blubber fresh from the catch. While ghosts don't need to eat, strictly speaking, Rear Admiral Feferi saw the whale of her dreams off the bow today, and glub it all, she is going to hunt it down, poke it 'till it bleeds, and make seadweller haute cuisine from its vast and glorious mass. Whale flank steak. Whale spleen haggis. Whale eye stewed in blubber.

It's going to be magnificent.

Captain Vriska thinks it's a stupid idea, because Captain Vriska thinks everything is a stupid idea if she didn't come up with it herself. Feferi thinks she is prejudiced because of her experience with Eridan's cooking, which Vriska has no idea she knows anything about. Feferi is determined to show the captain just how good seadweller cuisine can be. (She's particularly looking forward to offering Vriska a big bowl of whale eye with blubber, just to see her sweat.)

All this is predicated on her ability to actually locate The Whale, however, and so far this has proved problematic.

It has been three days now and so far, she has failed to produce anything even remotely resembling a whale, let alone The Whale. It's been too long since she's done any hunting and she's off her game. She spots it every few hours, and it's enough to give her hope, but she just can't seem to close in for the kill. She keeps losing it in the murky shadows of the abyssal depths. It's embarassing enough that she decides to lay the blame on Vriska to salvage her pride: the dreambubble is based off Vriska's memories, so it follows, hazily, that anything that happens here must be her fault.

Feferi knows this is horseshit, but she doesn't feel bad about this in the slightest, because Vriska has taken to hanging out on the deck near where Feferi is hunting and loudly speculating on her complete lack of progress whenever she surfaces for a break. Feferi is half-tempted to bring in any old whale, just to shut her up, but she knows, somehow, that Vriska will know the difference. Feferi can't bear to give her the satisfaction, so she opts to swallow her pride and keep hunting.

It doesn't help, and on the fourth day of searching for The Whale, she loses her temper.

Feferi hauls herself on deck, hissing through her sharp shark teeth. Everybody out of the god damn way, she thinks, she's got an ocean full of whale, a stomach full of empty, and a collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system full of what she has just now concluded are a seething mass of hitherto-unrecognized ink-black feelings about Captain Glubbing Vriska. "Tell you what, 'Captain'," she says sarcastically, dripping salt water all over the nice clean deck, "Gettin' reel tired of you carping at me, so I'll make you a bet." She's got the faintest notion of a plan.

The crew, who have gathered in hopes of an impending explosion, "oooh" in unison.

"Oh yeah?" Vriska puts her hands on her hips, and Feferi wants to slap her right in the kisser. She also wants to kiss her, but that can wait until after she's slapped her one.

"I bet you I'm gonna bring back that whale by the end of the day tommoray," Feferi says, gesturing emphatically with her trident.

"Bullshit," Vriska shoots back. "It's been, what, four fucking days? It's either gone, or you're so completely terrible at hunting whales that it might as well be gone."

Feferi curls her lip. It's hard to argue with Vriska's assessment when she's standing here empty-handed; this calls for diversionary tactics. "So you don't wanna mako the bet, is what you're saying."

"I never said that," Vriska says, folding her arms.

"So you will take it, then?" Feferi says quickly, trying to get her caught up in the moment so she'll agree impulsively without asking what the forfeit is.

"Of course I'll take your stupid bet! It's not like you're going to catch the damn thing, so what do I care?"

"Are you shore? You look nervous, Captain," Feferi lies, eyes glittering. She takes a step closer. "Now's your opportunaty to back out withtrout embarassing yourself." She knows this will only make Vriska more invested. She won't back down in front of her crew, not at the risk of losing face.

"Back out? As if!" Vriska throws her head back and laughs melodramatically. "You're not going to bag that stupid whale anytime this century, let alone by the end of the damn day tomorrow."

"I'm gonna bring the whale back by the end of the day tomorrow, and when I do, you're gonna eat some."

"Big deal," Vriska shrugs, "I've eaten whale before." Feferi knows, by way of Eridan, that this is true.

"Have you eaten whale eye stewed in blubber?" Feferi also knows, by way of Eridan, that Vriska threw up for an hour the one and only time that Eridan tried to feed her this seadweller delicacy. Seadweller cuisine is best termed an acquired taste, and Eridan is an abysmal cook. Vriska does not know that Feferi knows this, and Feferi is counting on it.

Vriska pales slightly. Her white eyes widen, then narrow defiantly. She's smart enough to know that she's been set up, even if she hasn't put all the pieces together quite yet. "No," she says, and flips her hair over her shoulder with exaggerated nonchalance, "sounds lame."

Feferi shoots a look at Meenah and grins. Meenah smirks and gives her the thumbs up from out of Vriska's view; she knows how landdwellers react to seadweller haute cuisine and anyway, she just lives for trouble. Feferi's got Vriska now, hook, line, and sinker. "So it dolphinately won't be a problem for you to finish a whole bowl when I win? In front of everyone?"

"Which you're completely and utterly not going to, so what do I even fucking care!" Vriska knows she can't back down now without looking like a coward, and it's getting her good and riled. There's an angry blue flush rising in her cheeks: the spider can't stand to be caught in someone else's net.

Feferi's grin widens, and she steps in even closer. "So you're in then?" Practically purring it in her face.

"I'll take your trident," Vriska says, drawing herself up tall and visibly (if ineffectively) calming herself. "When you obviously come back empty-handed." She looks Feferi right in the eye, reaches out, and runs a hand down it possessively, brushing right over Feferi's fingers. Feferi feels a jolt of pure delicious loathing lust right down her spine, and she knows Vriska's feeling it too. "Maybe I'll hang it in my cabin, right above my fireplace, where I can see it all the time. I might even let you touch it once in awhile."

"If you win," Feferi says, and yanks the trident out of Vriska's greedy hand. "Which you won't." She turns and dives right back into the water, cutting down through the waves like a harpoon.

Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's destiny. Maybe it's her newly-awoken hate sharpening her instincts and her drive. Whatever the case, when Feferi spots the whale this time, she sticks to it like a barnacle, determined to show Vriska up. She pushes herself harder than ever before, every muscle screaming for mercy, and doesn't let up until hours later, she drives her trident deep into its side for the killing blow.

Vriska nearly jumps out of her skin when Feferi leaps onto the ship and slams the whale's vast body onto the deck, to much applause from everyone on the crew who is not Captain Vriska (particularly First Mate Meenah, who is just as hungry for whale steak as Feferi is).

Feferi strides right up to Vriska, willing her overworked legs not to shake. She grins toothily and leans over to whisper in her ear, "It seams as though the Captain will be dining with the rest of the crew tonight. Looking forward to it? I know I am!"

Vriska grabs Feferi's wrist, hard. "I figured it out, Feferi."

"Figured what out?" Feferi says, innocently.

"Eridan told you about the whale eye stew, I know he did."

"What about it? It's an acquired taste. I'm just helping you acquire it."

"Very fucking funny, Feferi! You know it's more than just disgusting food for me, you know I'll throw up! In front of everyone! You're doing this on purpose, you made me agree to the bet before you told me what we were betting on! You're trying to make me look stupid!"

Feferi pulls her arm from Vriska's grasp and pokes her in the chest. "I seam to remember you not bothering to ask! If you made a stupid glubbing mistake and now you have to suffer for it, it's your fault, not mine."

Vriska swats Feferi's hand away, raising her voice to an angry hiss, "Well I couldn't exactly say no, could I! Not without looking like an asshole in front of everyone, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid!"

"Maybe you just don't like the fact that I beat you fair and square," Feferi smirks.

"You didn't beat me, you beat a fucking whale. Big deal." Vriska flips her hair back sulkily, trying to look disdainful. It isn't working.

"I beat you when I convinced you to agree to that bet, beach. You fell for it hook, line, and sinker! So glubbing busy falling all over yourself to not look scared that you walked right into it without even looking!"

"Fuck you!" Vriska growls, and takes a swing.

Feferi ducks gracelessly, legs almost buckling. She reaches out and grabs Vriska's coat for balance, and the two of them topple to the ground in a heap. They stare at each other for an infinite moment of white-hot tension. Feferi leans forward first, tangling her hands in Vriska's long hair, and pulls her down for a toothy, bruising kiss.

When they finally stop to breathe, Feferi leans up to Vriska's ear again. "You can eat your stew in my cabin," she hisses, "but I won that bet fair and glubbing square, so you're sure as shell still eating it." Pausing to drink in Vriska's vicious glare, she continues, "It's not as though you're not already plotting to take revenge at the first opportunaty anyway."

"You'll pay for this in spades," Vriska laughs bitterly, and Feferi can't help but smile. She's looking forward to it, actually; the thrill of uncertainty, of waiting for an enemy to strike and wondering just what she'll do. She's a rank and rotten bitch, Vriska is, but Feferi's acquired a taste for her now, and she wants more.

She lunges forward and bites down on Vriska's neck, eliciting a strangled groan of pain and pleasure. "I'm looking forward to you trying," she whisperes, and shoves Vriska off of her. "My cabin. Two hours. Bring an appetite. You'll need it."


End file.
